


data save

by ottermo



Series: As Prompted [67]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Collab Week, F/M, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 09:50:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14258343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: After Flash is attacked, Max and Mattie race against time to bring her back.





	data save

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Data Share](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/369309) by nachocheese-itsmycheese. 



> nachocheese-itsmycheese on tumblr wrote the most heartbreaking piece of Flax fic for the Humans 4-Week Challenge, so when Collab Week came around, I had to make it happy again! 
> 
> Hopefully AO3 lets me link the two works together here, we’ll see...

It didn’t take long for Mattie to transfer him the complete version of the consciousness code, but for every second that elapsed, Max cursed himself for not keeping a copy on hand at the train, in case of an attack.

Flash’s mind was dying, data being lost all the time. If she was left too long, there would be nothing left of her conscious memories at all. After that, even if Max could make her conscious again, she’d remember nothing of who she’d been the first time around. She’d be a blank slate, a newborn synth called Flash who wasn’t Flash at all. The person Max had come to love… she’d be gone.

He’d never even had the chance to tell her he loved her. Perhaps he hadn’t fully realised that he did, until now, when he might never get to tell her. It didn’t bear thinking about.

Finally the transfer was complete, and he dragged the consciousness code across to the wall of code he’d been staring at, the rows and rows of programming that made up Flash’s base profile. Soon he would have to power her up, and see whether or not it had worked. The idea that it might not - that his only hope might come to nothing - tightened its grip on Max’s mind, choking out any relief he might have felt, that he’d administered the code so quickly. He’d been fortunate - Mattie had been at home when he’d called her, able to send it across straight away.

His phone crackled from where it lay on the floor of the train. “Is it working?” asked Mattie’s voice. “Talk to me, Max.”

The concern in her voice was evident. Mattie had wanted to bring him the code in person, but although her presence would have been appreciated, Max had asked her to send it remotely instead, to save time.

“I’m turning her on now,” he said, just loud enough for the speakerphone to pick up. He leaned forward and pressed his thumb to Flash’s chin, a soft motion more similar to a caress than a jab. Then he pulled his hand away slowly, and waited for her to open her eyes.

Immediately her face began twitching again, but this time her face was contorted in pain, rather than staring at him neutrally, as it had done before. One of Flash’s hands jerked forward and closed around Max’s arm, as if trying to tell him something, but the only sounds she could make were vague blips, barely syllables, random bytes of noise that were sliced by interference. Max twisted his arm to reach her chin again.

“She’s conscious,” he said to Mattie, hoarsely. “But– could you hear? There’s something wrong still.”

“Okay,” Mattie said, “I think I’ve heard something like that before. On Hester, actually. She was electrocuted. Do you know what they did to Flash? Could there have been electricity or magnets involved?”

“Possibly.”

“With Hester we just had to reboot her internal system. But she was an industrial, she had circuit breakers and stuff… I don’t know if Flash will have the same kind of safeguards.” She exhaled, clearly thinking hard. “Try and isolate all the data that’s interacting with the consciousness code directly, and extract it to somewhere safe. At least we can save some of her memories that way.”

Max was already carrying out her suggestion. “I can pull a Zoya profile template from Persona,” he said, “If you’re right, and they used some kind of magnet to scramble her base profile…”

“Yes,” Mattie cut in, understanding where he was heading. “Yeah, that could work. Let me get the template on my end, while you do the extracting. The quicker we get this sorted…”

_The better our chances_ , Max finished for her silently. He continued working, pulling as much of the clean data from Flash’s frozen root code as he could, leaving what had been scrambled in the attack. If they ended up having to use this version…. it wouldn’t be perfect, but his father’s code was very good at healing over gaps, and restoring life where it had been damaged. It was better than having no hope at all.

Mattie sent the Zoya profile through, and Max unfroze the root code, scanning for near-matches and replacing all the faulty data with lines from the original programming. If this didn’t work, he would at least have the consciousness data he’d extracted, saved elsewhere for future attempts. Nobody had tried that before - freezing a live personality for later use - but perhaps it could be done. Hopefully they wouldn’t have to find out.

It took a number of minutes to restring Flash’s profile to the new template, and when he was done Max checked twice, three times, that he hadn’t missed anything.

“I think it’s ready,” he said, not really addressing Mattie, although she was listening still. He leaned forwards, and tapped Flash’s chin again.

Her eyes opened. Closed. Opened again. Max feared the worst.

Then, slowly, Flash managed to smile. “M-max,” she said. “I’m here. There’s still – something – I’m having to code all my – my speech – myself, but I – it’s better now.”

He pressed his forehead against hers, closing his eyes in silent gratitude. There was no mistaking her presence. Obviously he would have to work harder to fix the remaining problems with her speech, but she was alive. She remembered him. It was going to be all right.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Max said, softly.

“Never,” she said, her speech barely glitching at all in the space of that beautiful word.

 


End file.
